Sag Harbor: Cult Deaths Hit Home

Robert Maeder of Sag Harbor wore the look of a man who had just won the jackpot in the lottery of misfortune. A pained smile crossed his face as he described the media maelstrom that had engulfed his family since Gail Maeder, 27, was reported to have been among the 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult who committed suicide last week in their rented mansion in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

The trickle of reporters calling the family or arriving at their doorstep on Widow Gavitt's Road when their daughter's name was released turned into a torrent by Friday evening.

And the Maeders acquiesced, opening their house and granting interviews to countless print, television, and radio reporters over the Easter weekend, showing them a scrapbook of family photographs and the occasional letter they had received since 1994.

Media Barrage

"The only thing that keeps me going is saving someone else's kid," said Mr. Maeder on Monday after returning from New York City, where the couple appeared on "Good Morning America." "It's too late for mine."

"I should have made a recording and played it back," said Alice Maeder, who joined the conversation after completing yet another telephone interview, with a New Jersey radio station.

The phone rang again. This time it was the "Geraldo" show, arranging a taping for the following morning.

Although they are aware that the media's interest in tragedies is both voracious and shortlived - "We're like bait," said Mrs. Maeder, "everyone is coming to take a bite" - the couple said they don't plan to let the issue die.

Cult Information Service

Since 1994, when their daughter dropped off the face of the earth to join a group obsessed with U.F.O.s and space aliens who would take believers to a "Level Above Human," the Maeders have been active in the Cult Information Service, formerly known as the Cult Awareness Network.

The couple plans to attend the group's convention in New Jersey on April 20. "That will give us a good grandstand," said Mr. Maeder. "They'll listen to us because they'll know we've been through it."

They hope the media will attend. "The more the merrier," said Mr. Maeder. "People aren't aware of how many cults there are or how easy it is to get sucked up."

Heaven's Gate

He said he believed the Heaven's Gate cult operated like others he had learned about through the Cult Information Service.

"They enlist people at a low point," he said. "They deprive them of sleep, keep them very busy, and don't let them communicate with their families. They usually have one leader, who says he is either reincarnated or a prophet."

Members of Heaven's Gate believed a spaceship that would take them to a higher level of consciousness was trailing the Hale-Bopp comet which has appeared in recent weeks. In a farewell video they described how they would shed their human "containers" for their journey.

Mr. Maeder believes the Federal Government is afraid to investigate cults because they often wave the banner of religion, "and you know what happens when the Government attacks that." He suggested schools begin "cult awareness training" as a way to "inoculate" children against their pull later in life.

During their recent round of television appearances, the Maeders met a man, identified only as "Sawyer," who had been a member of Heaven's Gate, which was founded in the mid-1970s by Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles. The pair used the names Bo and Peep, and later Do and Ti, like the musical notes.

"It took him 19 years to get out," Mr. Maeder said. "These things are like a fish trap, the further you get in, the harder it is to get out."

Gail Maeder's descent apparently began in late 1993, shortly after she had returned to Sag Harbor to be in a cousin's wedding. When she was home, "she was herself," said her cousin, Lisa Browngardt. "If I had known anything was wrong, I would have never let her leave."

That visit in 1993 would be the last time her family and friends would see her.

While home, Ms. Maeder told her cousin, but not her parents, that she was breaking up with her boyfriend, Chad Thomas, with whom she had moved to Santa Cruz, Calif., in 1991.

"She told her it was too platonic between her and Chad. They were like brother and sister," Mrs. Maeder said.

After the breakup, Ms. Maeder moved into an apartment in the store she ran in Ben Lomond, a logging town in the redwood forest near Santa Cruz where she and Mr. Thomas had rented a cabin.

The young woman had bought the business with the help of a $5,000 loan from her father the previous year, but it had "turned sour," he said. The store, called Satori Caravan, sold jewelry and tie-dyed clothing.

About that time, a man her parents know only as Richard entered Ms. Maeder's life. According to her mother, he was a smooth talker who spouted New Age philosophy and was able to exert a strong influence over her daughter.

In early 1994, Ms. Maeder, then living in a rented $100-a-month trailer, hit the road with Richard. Mrs. Maeder said her daughter's landlady told her, "They've gone on an adventure. But they'll be back, because I have her cat and all her belongings."

Although it has been reported that Richard was a recruiter for the cult, Mrs. Maeder now has her doubts.

"He wasn't squeaky-clean," she said. She now believes both he and her daughter entered the cult at the same time.

Later that year, Richard returned to Ben Lomond alone. "He told people he was unable to handle the discipline," Mrs. Maeder said.

During 1994, Ms. Maeder's calls and letters home, with postmarks from across the country, dwindled. "We sweated between each one," her father said.

That summer, when the couple received a card postmarked Eureka, Calif., Mr. Maeder took out an ad in a paper there. "Happy 25th Birthday Gail Maeder," it read. "Please Call Home."

Although she did not respond, she wrote the family that fall on the back of a U.F.O. flyer put out by Total Overcomers Anonymous, the cult's old name. Later, Mr. Maeder said, she called and asked if they had received it.

"That's what I'm doing," she told them. "What do you think?"

Alarmed, the couple showed the flyer to Carl Browngardt, their niece's husband, who knew Paul Griswald, a Cult Awareness counselor. "As soon as he saw it, he said, 'Show it to Paul,' " Mr. Maeder said. "That's when we knew we were in big trouble."

The last time the Maeders heard from Gail was at Christmas in 1995. In a casual holiday note, she mentioned that she was "pretty busy, too, learning to use a computer."

"We thought that was good. That it might lead to a job," Mr. Maeder said. He was unaware that the cult had started a business designing pages for the Internet to fund their activities.

The Maeders learned of their daughter's death early last Thursday. Mr. Maeder was home alone watching the news when reports of the cult's mass suicide were broadcast the evening of March 26.

He was at first relieved when early reports suggested all the victims were male, but his heart sank when one of the flyers was flashed across the screen. He recognized it.

That night, Mr. Maeder phoned a police number.

"I must have dialed that number 80 times before I got through," he said. "You're helpless. There's not a damn thing you can do." He spent the night in fitful sleep on the living room couch until being awakened at about 4 a.m. by a call confirming his daughter's death.

"I don't think she knew she was going to die when she drank that stuff," Mrs. Maeder said of the fatal combination of barbiturates and vodka cult members consumed. "I think she believed she was going to wake up and be reincarnated and get on the spaceship."

"There is such a void," she continued. "We've had three years of mourning over this kid, and now she'll be home, but not in the way I wanted."

Ms. Maeder was born on Aug. 18, 1969. She attended Sag Harbor schools, graduating from Pierson High School in 1987. Her mother said her daughter was a member of the youth group at the Old Whalers Church and enjoyed taking part in school plays.

Interested in a career in fashion design, Ms. Maeder went to Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., for a semester and later transferred to Suffolk Community College. Before leaving for California, she worked at several local stores including Starfish in Sag Harbor and the Outdoor Store in Southampton.

Besides her parents, Ms. Maeder is survived by a brother, Daniel.

Ms. Maeder was cremated. Her family plans to hold a memorial service at the Old Whalers Church at a later date.

The family has asked that memorial contributions be sent to either Cult Information Service, P.O. Box 867, Teaneck, N.J. 07666 or St. Jude's Children's Hospital, P.O. Box 50, Memphis, Tenn. 38101.